Chapter 40

I walked to the door of Marine One and had a change of mind.

‘‘Its going to be a few hours, you can leave it here or take it back to Andrews,’’ I said.

In the White House I went down to the Joint Chief’s command center to see if it had been activated. Normally the night shift was light on duty officers. The incident in the East China Sea had raised the alert status level up by several steps and for tonight, the chairs at every position were filled.

‘‘Have you been able to establish a continuous communication link to the Nevada?’’ I asked.

‘‘Yes, there is a delay caused by the satellite, but we can communicate with the Nevada. It is sailing with just the conning tower above the water for stability and to reduce pressure on the hull, plus it allows all the antennas to work more effectively,’’ Rear Admiral Barnes answered.

‘‘The antennas are undamaged and radar is working. The Nevada is reporting that several Chinese ships are approaching the area at high speed, confirming what the aircraft are saying. The Chinese ships are one hundred and fifty miles away from the Nevada’s current position,’’ he said.

‘‘At one hundred and fifty miles they were five hours away,’’ I thought. All that indicated that it may have been a Chinese sub.

‘‘The forward torpedo outer doors are damaged as is the outer hull from the bow to the D post. The pressure hull appears to be intact and undamaged and was holding pressure when tested,’’ he said.

‘‘The collision damaged the forward-looking sonar on the bow. All the reactor checks are within normal limits, the missile tubes and missiles are being individually checked but so far, all test come back OK,’’ he added.

‘‘When you get a break in the damage reports, I would like to know if there were any indication that whatever they hit broke apart or sank. I need to go upstairs for a bit, but I will be back in a while,” I said.

I had just walked into the Oval Office when Secretary of State Amos Dean called on the office phone.

‘‘None of our allies have lost communications with any submarines and none have any in the East China Sea,’’ he said.

‘‘OK, thanks for the call,’’ I said. Well, at least that is one answer so far.

I wondered what they had hit that acoustics or sonar did not pick up? Maybe they were not using active sonar if they were ordered to run silent. That was another question to ask - what were their mission orders?

Could it have been a North Korean sub? Intelligence had not reported that they were venturing that far from North Korea. Reporting always said they were staying close to home, maybe China had sold them some improved equipment or were helping with training, causing them to venture that far.

But why were the Chinese rushing ships to the area, another good question.

The sea was thousands of feet deep in that area, and the Navy did routine surveys to find any underseas volcano that could have made an undersea pinnacle peak since the last survey.

Several ships in the past had hit uncharted pinnacle rocks with bad results. In WW2 one of the battle ships had hit one and opened a gash in one of its oil storage tanks, taking it out of the war for months.

It was sent to the Puget Sound Navy Yard for repairs and they were notoriously slow. The aircraft carrier Saratoga was sent there to repair Japanese torpedo damage; it took over a year for the repairs to be made, just from one torpedo hit.

In 2020 one of our submarines hit one in a different area of the Pacific causing serious damage that took years to repair and injured half of the crew. Reports said they were using the wrong charts for the area.

I texted the girls for a VCATS to tell them I was delayed and may not make it tonight, I needed to stay in Washington for a while. We talked for over an hour and I got a few of my questions answered.

If I did not get home tonight, three of them and the boys were coming over tomorrow.

I went back to the military command center for an update.

Rear Admiral Barnes gave me the latest update.

‘‘The Nevada had increased speed by a couple knots. They responded yes to your question, they did hear sounds that whatever they hit sank and was crushed by the pressure as it sank,’’ he said.

‘‘They immediately surfaced and searched the area for survivors but found only debris which they brought a lot onboard for the investigation. The ship’s divers inspected the bow damage, including sending photographs. Then they headed for Japan because it was their original destination after completion of their patrol and has better repair facilities,’’ he said.

‘‘A copy of the photographs should be here soon,’’ he added.

‘‘Tell them to send photographs of the debris they kept so they can be immediately analyzed at the first opportunity,’’ I said.

I went to the CIA office in Section Four of the basement.

‘‘Pull up the satellite video of the last pass over this area,’’ I said as I gave him the GPS numbers of the area of the Nevada’s last position.

I watched as the operator brought the information up, sent it to the big screen and then maximized the image as large as possible.

‘‘Lock on that area while keeping the Nevada in the center of the screen and start backing it up at double time,’’ I said.

It was three hours earlier when the Nevada had surfaced. There was nothing and then the submarine on the surface of the ocean. With the enlarged images we could see the crew inspecting the bow of the sub. It was only a few minutes later divers were in the water looking at the bow.